Through the looking glass

Potential tech revolution could be a lucrative rabbit hole for Tulsa

I recently watched the ravishing (if flawed) film “The Imitation Game,” about computing pioneer Alan Turing and his historic efforts to break Nazi crypto-codes during WWII. The film chronicles many things, including Turing’s constant battles with bureaucratic inertia, the hyper-conventional British military and the routine oppression the UK visited on homosexuals—especially those with security clearances. But it’s also about Turing’s development, with his team at Bletchley Park, of a prototype mainframe computer—a confection of human interface, software and hardware that changed the world. 

Last week marked the first public showing of another platform with equally epochal potential. And like most cross-industry tech innovations, this one will come with early benefits for some communities—ones that will themselves to be “first movers.”

Out of nowhere

Imagine designing a piece of furniture, a shoe or a bike using a virtual studio—a digitally enhanced but hand-driven workshop that simply materializes in your house or office space when you need it.

Imagine playing an incredibly realistic squash game in your home, mediated by a lightweight pair of goggles that creates a high-resolution, richly textured environment in any ordinary setting.

Say your grandmother, who lives miles away, has again accidentally switched the input mode on her television and can’t get her daily dose of QVC. How cool would it be to “pop in” visually and help her get the TV working?

Imagine Tulsa as a center for companies at the bleeding edge of what might be the Next Big Thing in computing platforms—a transformation as revolutionary as the creation of mainframes, computer languages, personal computing and touch-screen “smart” devices.

Radical potential

Tech companies often release “concept videos” promising dramatic new technologies and novel devices they claim will soon hit stores. These dog-and-pony shows often highlight things that would be incredibly useful—if they came to fruition and did a fraction of the stuff the “previews” claim.

Recently, at an otherwise predictable Microsoft Windows developer presentation for software pros and a handful of technology reporters, the company unveiled the HoloLens—a strange looking goggle device that creates a virtual overlay to whatever you’re experiencing visually in the real world. 

Unlike Google’s failed Glass product, which was designed and marketed as a mass-consumer, everyday device, Microsoft will target a narrower audience of business and tech users, with applications conceived and designed to meet the needs of those arenas. The new device, or a technology like it (Apple, Facebook and others are working or have filed patents on similar efforts), could change the way we interact with smart machines. Entertainment and gaming, home and office computers, telecommunication, personal services and education could change radically as a result. 

Seeing is believing

With the exception of a handful of developers and top technology writers, few people have actually tried out the new HoloLens, but the reaction of those few has been mostly positive. 

Tech reporter Jessi Hempel, who profiled new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a cover story for Wired, got a personal preview of the HoloLens and relayed the gadget’s various awe-inspiring bells and whistles.

“But it’s a much more mundane task that really gives me a sense of Project HoloLens’ potential: fixing a light switch,” Hempel wrote. “Kipman [a key Microsoft developer] places the headset on me, and points me toward a 3-inch-wide hole in the wall with wires jutting out of it and a nearby sideboard topped with unfamiliar tools. (As is perhaps obvious, I’m no electrician.) An engineer pops up on my screen, Skyping in from another room, and introduces himself. He can see exactly what I’m seeing. He draws a holographic circle around a voltage tester atop the sideboard. Then he walks me through the process of installing the switch, coaching me and sketching quick holographic arrows and diagrams that glow on the wall in front of me. Five minutes later, I flip a switch and the living room light turns on.”

TU turns on

At the end of last year, the University of Tulsa announced an exciting new program: the Tandy School of Computer Science undergraduate program in computer simulation and gaming, which is slated to begin in Fall 2015. 

“The computer simulation and gaming industry is growing locally and nationally,” said Roger Mailler, associate professor of computer science at TU. “Within the Tulsa area [exist] three gaming companies and nine others that develop simulation technology for commercial and military entries. We’re excited to extend our curriculum to meet the demands of such a booming, niche industry.”

Mailler told me he hasn’t yet gotten his hands on a HoloLens, but that the device is in part a consequence of Microsoft’s success with the Xbox gaming platform—one of the few areas of real innovation and commercial success the company has carved out recently. He also told me about TU’s leadership role in an upcoming conference on gaming, and some related efforts in town to push advanced gaming simulation and interactive media as an economic development driver. 

Using what we’ve got

Several times as a working adult, I’ve made extensive use of advanced visual software—specifically, the suite of tools used to create digital animation, 3-D objects and digital models.

There were times I wished I could just break the “screen barrier” and use some kind of computerized gesture or hand-tracking system to draft the prototype designs and object models my team was doing. If the new HoloLens is “real”—that is, if it can actually do what Microsoft’s concept video suggests, it will break that barrier and might revolutionize the way we interact with technology. 

Tulsa has extensive experience in seismic modeling and other virtual computing innovations at the center of oil and gas exploration. Plenty of local firms are deeply involved with simulation technology related to aviation. Can our city be a “first mover” in the holographic arena and reap the benefits of a potentially game-changing tech industry shift? 

We’ve got the tools. Putting them to use simply takes some foresight and some will.